


Salt on the Wounds and Smoke in the Storm.

by theatergirl06



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: F/F, Have some Parrelyn (or Parrlyn), fluffy ending!, yay!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:22:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23764531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theatergirl06/pseuds/theatergirl06
Summary: Cathy Parr is determined to hide her pain, but even the most powerful queens need saving some nights. Luckily, Anne Boleyn is there to help.
Relationships: Anne Boleyn/Catherine Parr
Comments: 5
Kudos: 97





	Salt on the Wounds and Smoke in the Storm.

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Stabbing, flames, emotional abuse.

It was generally safe to say that Cathy Parr was one of the calmest of the queens. Only Anna was calmer than her, really. Jane had asked her once how she stayed so calm, and she hadn’t really known the answer, but she’d found herself unable to write that night, instead lost in her brain, pondering the third queen’s question. 

She’d come to the conclusion that it was because of how introverted she was. She was the most introverted of all the queens, hands down. Most of the other queens were extroverts or half and half, but she’d always been introverted. It was just how she was.

Catherine could be considered half and half. Like Cathy, she got her energy from time alone, not time spent with other people, but she was one to express her feelings, not bottle them up. She was often reluctant to put her emotions into words, but it was easy to tell when she was feeling good and when she wasn’t.

Anne, Kat, and Anna, the trio of mischief makers (as Anne sometimes called them), were all 100% extroverted. They all preferred to show their feelings, though Anna often didn’t know how, and ended up hiding everything from herself without meaning to. But none of them  _ naturally  _ dealt with their emotions internally. And it was easy to tell they all gained their energy from being around others. It made them happier, calmer, and just  _ better,  _ every time.

Jane was another mix. She had was mostly introverted in terms of her quieter nature and the way she tended to “not burden the others with her silly little problems” (her words, not Cathy’s). She was even able to spend hours alone, getting absorbed into the soothing rhythm of baking, reading, or knitting a hat for one of the others. However, she was also able to gain energy from spending time with the others.

Cathy, on the other hand, was completely introverted. There was never any question about it. She was never one to display her feelings on the surface. Not because she didn’t know how to, but because she preferred to try and work them out herself. She loved spending time with the other queens, but she gained her true energy from staying alone. On the rare occasions when her feelings  _ did  _ appear where they could be seen, she was already alone and there was nobody around to see them. 

So everyone just assumed she was calm. And most of the time, she was. 

But on the rare occasions when she wasn’t, late in the night, when she fell asleep at her laptop and nightmares crept in, her emotions told a different story. 

Those nights came rarely, about once a month, when everyone was asleep. She’d managed many times to pass the screaming off as sleep deprivation. A couple of times when she hadn’t, she’d made her way to Catherine’s room, and her godmother had wrapped her in hugs and calmed her down. She rarely indulged herself in being wrapped up and soothed, but some nights, she needed her mum.

It was one particular night in late April that she experienced another kind of nightmare. One she’d never forget.

The night had started out normal. It was raining, as it often did in the spring in London. It had been the absolute perfect weather for a movie night, and the queens had gotten on their pajamas (Cathy’s blue plaid pajamas had been a gift from Jane last Christmas), grabbed a lot of junk food (most of which was going to be eaten by only Anne), and piled all the pillows and blankets into the television room for a movie marathon (the rule was that each queen chose a movie, they drew straws to decide the order, and they watched until the last of the queens had gone to bed.

After laughing through  _ Star Wars, Pitch Perfect, Enchanted,  _ and  _ Legally Blonde,  _ Kat had fallen asleep in Anna’s lap, Jane was barely keeping her eyes open, and Catherine had gone into the kitchen and not come back, which everyone knew was code for going to sleep. 

So, slightly tired but not at all exhausted, Cathy had made her way up the stairs to her tiny bedroom in the corner of the second floor. She’d begun writing a story. A romance, though she didn’t know why. Maybe it was because of all the fluffy movies they’d watched.

_ She stood in a green field. The grass was fresh, the flowers were blooming. The birds were singing. It was even sunny, and she felt like she was in a romance movie.  _

_ Thomas smiled as he laid out the picnic blanket in front of her. He looked handsome with his blonde hair blowing in the spring breeze, his blue eyes sparkling in the bright sunlight.  _

_ He passed her a sandwich. _

_ “No mustard this time. I remembered you thought it was too bitter because you have no tolerance for spice.” _

_ “No, you have unusual denial of horrible tastes.” _

_ “Guess that’s why I decided to go out with you.” _

_ Cathy felt her blood run cold, the sickly sweet syrupy feeling passing through her.  _

_ “I’m good enough for you, Thomas. I did everything you said.” _

_ “Well, it wasn’t enough. You know it wasn’t.” _

_ Cathy never cried, and yet she felt tears sliding down her cheeks. Thomas had that effect on her. It was one of the things she loved most about him. He made her feel things.  _

_ “Thomas, what do you need me to do. I swear I’ll do it.” _

_ “No you won’t. For God’s sake, Catherine, you married the damn king!” _

_ “I didn’t have a choice! He would have killed me!” _

_ “So you put yourself before me? Is that what you think love is?” _

_ “ I was doing the best I could!” _

_ “Well, it wasn’t enough, Catherine! Why can’t you ever do enough?!” _

_ The skies turned black. The green fields caught fire, reminding her of the fires in her town during her year being held hostage by religious extremists. If she squinted, she could almost see them running at the edge of the field.  _

_ In one blur of swift motion, Thomas drove his hand into her chest, knocking the wind out of her and pinning her to the ground. _

_ Then he pulled out a knife and sliced it through her gut. _

_ Blood pooled onto the picnic blanket and flooded the field, mixing with the flames and turning them a deep shade of red.  _

_ She felt tears of pain and grief spilling over her face. _

_ The pain in her gut intensified. _

_ She couldn’t take it anymore.  _

“Cathy! Cathy!”

She felt someone shaking her shoulders and bolted upright, sweating and gasping for air. She wildly looked around. The room was dark, and there was no way out. She was sitting in a chair. There was a person with their hands on her shoulders.

She whirled around, panicked and crying. The figure behind her was someone she felt feelings for. She didn’t want Thomas here. She couldn’t do it again. He’d kill her. He just had, and he’d do it again in a heartbeat. 

“Thomas, where am I?!”

The hands faltered, then drew back from her shoulders. She spun and kicked at Thomas, knocking him to the floor. She grabbed the chair and prepared to break it over his head. Maybe that could buy her some time. 

The figure rose up and yanked the chair out of her hands. She reeled backwards, ready for the final blow.    
Instead, he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed, gently and soothingly, so that she had to breathe evenly.

“Cathy? Listen to me. It’s Anne. Your girlfriend. I’m not Thomas. I’m not going to hurt you. You’re here. With me. You’re safe.”

Cathy felt her breaths evening out, her mind beginning to clear, bringing her back to the present. She wrapped her arms around Anne and let the tears flow, unable to stop them falling, burying her face in her shoulder. 

“It’s alright. Thomas isn’t here. You’re with me. And I love you. And you don’t have to earn that.”

Cathy drew back sharply. “How did you know that?”

Anne blushed a pretty shade of red. “You were talking in your sleep.”

Cathy sighed and unwrapped her arms from her girlfriend’s shoulders. “I’m really sorry, Anne. You shouldn’t have had to see that.” She tried to pull away, but Anne just gripped her arms even tighter.

“No, Cathy. It’s okay to be scarred by what happened to you. We all are.”

“But…”

“Just because your troubles aren’t obvious doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

Cathy stared at her girlfriend for a split second, then slumped into her arms. “But it feels so real. I can’t make him go away, Anne. He’s always there.”

Anne looked into the sixth queen’s deep brown eyes. “Look, Cathy. I understand the people who don’t leave. It’ll take a while before they go away. But the important thing is not to let them define you. To be able to look around them and live your life. We all have nightmares, but we let them happen. We let people help us. And then we move on. We let ourselves take a break from the pain.” She gave Cathy a pointed glance. “Instead of bottling it all up so it comes out only in nightmares.” Cathy blushed. “Do you think you can do that? Can you look past the pain.”

Cathy squeezed Anne’s hands. “Thomas has always told me that love meant control. Violence. Rules, disappointment. When I got here, I saw him every day. But slowly, he went away. Someone gave me a new definition of love.” She looked right into Anne’s eyes. “Someone really, really special.”

Anne’s face turned red again. “Oh, don’t be a sap.”

“You saved me, Anne. In more ways than one.”

Anne blushed even deeper, surprised by the sincerity of the moment.

“You too, you know.”

Cathy squeezed her girlfriend’s hand and laid her head on her shoulder. 

“I know.”


End file.
